Steve Mactaggart's Blog

With this daily posting thing I have been stretched a couple of times to find a name for the article, but todays is straight forward.  With Steve Jobs’ keynote at Macworld going nearly 2hrs I had little else I could fit in todays post.

For those that are living under a rock, Apple Inc (their new name) released their first public viewing and demo of the new iPhone.  Now being an Aussie sucks as we don’t look like seeing it until way after 2008, but we can watch and dream.

Jobs is really the master of the long product launch, he has a passion for his products and although sometimes he’s a bit corny his demos always inspire a WOW.  I guess he does have the advantage of showing off some of the best products with some of the most innovative thought and design put into them.

So the iPhone…  It will probably cost way too much, probably have sucky battery life, the touch screen will probably fail or not be as good as we all expect..  But do I want one.. Of course!

Hopefully by the time they get approval in Australia, we will have rev2 out, or at least I will have had the chance to read reviews from actual owners who have lived with it.

I did think that they got a lot right, the dragging sort of scrolling while seems obvious now will be the kicker. The click wheel was the iPods innovation, and with all the talk of the different features of the iPod I think the best bit is the drag scrolling.

I’m not sure if it was deliberate, but it seems that what they did was turn the click wheel around 45 degrees, and so instead of playing on the wheel, you start to scroll on the surface or Tire..  Very nice.

I expect the press to jump up and down and cover the iPhone to death, but the other cool thing is the iTV (sorry Apple TV).  I’m looking for a way to extend my home pc to my home theater and while I don’t think its for me it does look like another thing that will help the convergence of computer and lounge room.

Ok so thats a lot of Apple love..  But a bit too much for this article, so let me balance it up.  Of all the things apple does well, I think their biggest hole is iTunes.  Now with the iPhone and AppleTV syncing through iTunes its becoming a much more core application.

On the surface it works well, click, push and your there, but it really limits the power users ability to configure it.  I want to be able to have a podcast listed in my directory, say IT Conversations, now they publish heaps of podcasts that I don’t want so I’d like to see the items and then mark them manually for download.  For other podcasts, like Twit or the JavaPossie, I want them as soon as possible, so just download them when they appear in the feed.

This is just a simple example of how apple pushes its design on its customers, and in most cases its wrong, but sometimes the fits not right, and so I’m reluctant to jump whole heartily into the Apple camp and invest my hard earned as it won’t exactly fit.

I’d like to see a more Open software stance, given that they give most of their software away free couldn’t they take a Firefox kind of approach and have a highly configurable add in system that allows us developers to build and change their products as we see fit.  Now I know that only power users will understand and install addons, but thats the point.  It also fosters development and eventually, like in Firefox, the popular features may be absorbed by iTunes itself for the world to enjoy.

Just my thoughts, but I’d love to get an airport connected to my outdoor speakers, an Apple TV to the home theater and keep my contacts and photos synced to my iPhone, but the jam in the sandwich is a little bit off for my liking.  Once iTunes opens up and we can customise it our way, add in our own sections and sync it with other data sources I’ll just have to admire from a far.

Also, any note of Java on the iPhone?  Hope so.. Fingers crossed, full JRE.. No J2ME.

night.